Property Rights without Transfer Rights: A Study of Indian Land Allotment

In the early 20th century, the U.S. government allotted millions of acres of tribe-owned reservation lands to individual Native American households. Allotments were initially held in trusteeship, to be later converted to fee-simple with full transfer rights. In 1934, this program was shut down, locking more than half of all allotments into trusteeship indefinitely. We investigate the long-run consequences of non-transferability on land development and agricultural activity, using fine-grained satellite imagery from 1974–today.